


home is where I used to belong

by pan_ismyhomeboy



Series: Tales and Myths of Central Thedas [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, post Endgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_ismyhomeboy/pseuds/pan_ismyhomeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home is harder than Varric thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is where I used to belong

The night Varric returns to Kirkwall, the heavens have opened up and flooded the city. Every cobblestone from the docks to Hightown is covered in slick grime and fast-pooling water that threatens to turn the city’s maze of streets into one of canals. Thunder booms overhead, so close he can feel the vibrations rattling in his jaw. There are stories of people lucky enough (or unlucky enough, depending on your point of view) who somehow survived direct lightning strikes only to be left addled or unable to move half their body _or,_ in one memorable case, somehow speaking fluent Orlesian. Varric, however, is merely a purveyor of stories and has no desire to see these ones enacted in person, so he hugs close to the stone wall ascending to Lowtown and hurries to the safest shelter he can think of. That’s the problem with these damn vernal storms in the Free Marches: in like a lion, out like a pissed-off lion, or something like that. Tomorrow the sky will probably be clear and innocently blue while Hightowners scrunch their faces at getting their fancy shoes all muddy and everyone else deals with the bodies floating up from the lower Darktown wards.

Springtime in Kirkwall: he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

He pulls the hood of his cloak further over his head, though between the gusts and torrential downpour he might as well be dancing through the streets in nothing but his smallclothes. Strange to think it’s almost been a full year since he’d left with the rest of Hawke’s retenue on the night everything had gone full to shit. It’d been proper summer then, the sky heavy with still-bound electricity over their heads. In his retellings the storm finally breaks at the moment of Meredith’s entombment (always entombment and never death in Varric’s mind, because until he sees that statue smashed and pulverized into a million tiny pieces it will never truly be over) and unleashes an unholy rain that cleanses Kirkwall, soothing the fires of the Chantry rubble and allowing the Champion to escape under the cover of mist and darkness. It’s a good ending to a very, very bad day.

Varric doesn’t actually know what the weather or anything else was like in the weeks and months after they fled Kirkwall. What few connections he possessed outside the city were quickly used up to secure Hawke safe passage out of the Free Marches. (Not that they weren’t all potentially at risk, Anders especially so, but capturing or killing the Champion of Kirkwall who’d had a hand in killing both the Knight-Commander _and_ First Enchanter of the Kirkwall Circle would have been too great a prize to risk a run-in with overzealous Chantry supporters or even just would-be mercenaries looking for two sovereigns to rub together.) Almost immediately their misfit crew began drifting apart until it had been just Isabela and Anders standing alongside Hawke as they sailed out into the Waking Sea, Varric watching from shore.

_“Keep him out of trouble, Rivaini," he’d said the night before, when Hawke was out of earshot._

_"I'll do my best," Isabela said, voice more cheerful than her smile._

_"And you, Blondie, you take care of him.  You owe him that much.”_

_“With my life,” the mage promised softly. “I’ll keep him a safe and free man, I swear on my word.”_

Not that Anders’ word is worth much anymore, but it was the best assurance Varric could get that while Hawke was going where almost none of them could follow, he would not be going alone.

Lightning forks brilliantly overhead, illuminating the nearly-flooded Lowtown streets as though it were the middle of the day. The accompanying boom of thunder is too close and too loud for comfort; Varric laughs to himself, though of course the sound is lost to the storm. Imagine surviving epic battles, smuggling the Champion of Kirkwall the hell out of Kirkwall, and trekking all the way back to his old stomping grounds only to be killed by an errant lightning strike. That _would_ be just his luck, if he were the sort of person to believe in luck. Here lies Varric Tethras, killed by the Maker’s sick sense of humor and a good dose of irony. Still, if there were any good way for a storyteller to go…

He shakes himself from his thoughts and shoves himself against the door of the Hanged Man. A magnificently awful stench of stale ale mixed with overripe bodies assaults his nose, followed by a curl of woodsmoke from the blazing hearth. Though the storm threatens to pull the door off its hinges and flood the tavern, at first he cannot bring himself to move from the threshold. He hadn’t expected… well, he hadn’t expected to bloody tear up at returning home, that’s for sure, and Maker is it pathetic that after years of living and bleeding and nearly dying in this city that _this_ is the closest thing to home he has. Automatically his eyes scan for faces he knows aren’t there. Nearly a year and the damn place hasn’t changed a bit, only it’s changed completely the way the entire city has changed completely, and he’d probably stand there marinating in his own angst forever until someone yells at him to close the door and someone _else_ gives a shout of recognition and all Norah has to say is, “Oh _bollocks,_ it’s _you_.”

He is greeted like an old friend by some and a familiar, temporarily misplaced light fixture by others. Corff is still running the place and that paranoid guy is still wandering the hallways and the ale still tastes like watered down piss; Varric has never been more grateful for normalcy in his life. When he takes out his coinpurse Corff waves it away, barking at Norah, “Round of drinks for the house, on the house tonight. Look alive lass!"

“I’ll look however I damn well please and you sure as Void aren’t taking this out of _my_ earnings!”

The banter makes him laugh and makes his heart ache all at once. Varric puts his coinpurse down on the table and slides across one sovereign at a time. “Booze. Dinner. Place to sleep. My old room, if it’s still open.”

Corff shakes his head but takes the coin all the same “If it’s still open, he says! Don’t suppose you still have the key you ran off with?” The man laughs when Varric reaches into his traveling clothes and pulls out a cord necklace with a key as the makeshift pendant. “Course you do. Go on, I’ll have Norah bring you up dinner in a bit.”

“Thanks,” says Varric, giving a weary but genuine smile. “Don’t suppose you could keep this quiet for a few days? I’d appreciate being able to pass out before the city finds out I’m back.”

He’s under no impression that his arrival has gone unnoticed, even if he hadn’t been recognized in one of the seediest and most gossip-prone bars in all of Kirkwall. Still, Corff nods and glares at some eavesdropping patrons, who nervously turn their attention back to their cups. “I’ll do what I can, though the higher ups stopped asking around for you a few months after… well, you know.”

“Yeah. I owe you one, Corff. Norah, you are looking radiant as ever tonight.”

“Don’t think sweet talking me’s gonna keep me from spitting in your food, you bloody delinquent. You have any idea how much coin we could’ve made while Corff refused to rent your room out to anyone? _Loads_ of coin, _that’s_ how much.”

Another spat starts up between Norah and Corff, leaving Varric to make a getaway from the prying eyes of the tavern. He meets the other patrons’ curious gazes, those who deign to look at them; he wonders which one will be the one to alert the guards or go crying to the templars in exchange for gold. Varric, however, is tired of running, and with Hawke now firmly out of the picture (bless his fool of a hero’s heart) there’s nowhere to go except back home.

He pulls the key from around his neck and unlocks the door. Everything is neat — well, as a relative term here in Lowtown — yet dusty, as though someone had tidied long ago and left the room undisturbed since. He does not expect it to be this hard and again lingers in the doorway, lost in his own thoughts before finally marshaling himself to step inside. Varric is still dripping from the storm and so busies himself with bringing his fireplace to life. A _real_ fireplace, he marvels, with a stoker and grate and everything! No gusts to blow burning bits of soot in their eyes, no mabari trying to mark territory by pissing on the fire, no roasting wild game and foraged roots on a spit. He’d always kept his room at the Hanged Man for practical reasons and personal aesthetic preference (and also because he just _loved_ seeing the look on people’s faces when he played up the whole merchant prince schtick only to meet up with them later in a place like this, and yes he _does_ make his home here willingly, thank you very much). Now though, he feels like this is a luxury he shouldn’t be able to afford.

When the fire is built up to a steady roar, Varric finally slips out of his travel gear and kicks his sodden boots to the side. He spreads out his cloak as near to the hearth as he can and hangs his leather jacket over the back of one chair. Over the pop and hiss of the fire he can hear the steady murmur of tavern drunks underscored by the sound of rain against the roof. Sighing, Varric pulls out a chair and just sits. He allows his eyes to close and his mind to drift for several long moments before a knock at the door interrupts. It’s Corff who brings dinner, not Norah (“because it’s no fair to poison you on your first night back,” the other man says sensibly as he comes in with a tray) and Varric never thought what passed as food around here would look so _good_. He wastes no time scarfing down the bread and stew, listening to Corff recount all the changes to Kirkwall over the past several months. In truth Varric barely absorbs any of it exhausted as he is, but he appreciates the company nonetheless. When Corff leaves and closes the door behind him, Varric peels off the rest of his clothes to dry by the fire and collapses into bed.

Home. He’s finally home. Not a bad place to be, all things considered, though significantly more lonely than the last time he’d been here.

Aveline had been the one to leave them first, only a few days out of the city. “I can’t leave Kirkwall to defend itself alone,” she’d said quietly to Hawke over the fire. “You have to understand.” And Hawke _had_ understood, giving her a sad smile as he pulled her into an embrace and kissed her forehead.

“Go on, save Kirkwall then. And give Donnic my best.”

A few weeks later they had sought refuge in an abandoned Dalish campsite, broken wind ships beyond repair rotting in the overgrown weeds. Merrill had spent most of the night carefully digging through the grass to see what she could find. A stone statue of a dog came to sit around the edge of the fire with Merrill perched on a log beside it, both staring out into the darkness.

“I miss them,” she said when Varric put a hand on her shoulder. “Other elves, I mean. I miss Sundermount, even if there’s nothing left for me. I even miss the Alienage! Now who goes out of their way to miss the Alienage, I wonder?”

Hawke had given her his blessing because he was Hawke and because he loved his friends more than he feared being lonely. But after that, Varric could see how he looked at their remaining companions as though trying to gauge which one of them was next. It’d been easy leaving Kirkwall with each of them at his back. It was harder to stay the course as he realized he’d torn each of his companions from their own lives, whether meaning to or not, to protect him.

Fenris was next, and Fenris had not gotten Hawke’s blessing. Two months into the venture Varric and Isabela returned from a hunting trip to find Fenris and Hawke shouting at each other across camp, Anders nowhere to be seen. “How _could_ you?” Fenris said over and over. “How could you even think about taking us there? How could you think I would ever follow?”

“Where else would two apostates on the run from the Chantry be safe?” Hawke pleaded. “Please, Fenris, I have to think about—”

“Your damnable abomination lover, I _know_ ,” Fenris snarled, reaching for his sword. The entire party tensed, hands going for weapons, Isabela and Varric exchanging silent glances to affirm that yes, they were about to attack Fenris if he attacked Hawke. But Fenris’ arm fell to his side as the fight left him, face stricken as he turned away and began packing up his things. He hadn’t even stayed through the night, striking out into the darkness without so much as a glance at any of them.

(Which, ouch, had stung more than Varric wanted to admit. Not that the… whatever-it-was between them had much chance to blossom on the open road, but there’d been a few nights where Fenris had pushed his bedroll beside Varric’s and the two snuggled as best they could given a hard ground and rather comical height differences. They’d never really _talked_ about it and now, watching the elf disappear into the night without even a farewell, he really wishes they had.)

And then, Varric. Varric who’d gotten them to the coast, who’d planned with Isabela’s help to secure a vessel that would take them no questions asked out onto the Waking Sea. The irony of Fenris’ departure was that Hawke wasn't even sure they _could_ get to Tevinter after all, what with the entirety of a Chantry-aligned Nevarra to walk through and news spreading of the far-too-recognizable Hawke and Anders’ escape from Kirkwall. A trading vessel then, one run by people Isabela could vouch for, making port stops along the Waking Sea and eventually heading back east, past Kirkwall again, out into the open Amaranthine Ocean and into freedom. Perhaps even one day they could make it overseas to Tevinter, though Varric had shaken his head and asked not to know about their final plans. Just in case.

Hawke had fallen silent for a few long moments before saying, “You aren’t coming with us.”

Varric offered a weary smile of his own. “Time for me to head back home, Hawke. You don’t need me anymore.”

“Bullshit,” Hawke said, wiping at his eyes. “Isabela?”

“With you to the next port at least, sweet thing. And after that, who knows? I won’t say no if you keep to sea travel.”

Hawke started to turn to Anders before the other man pulled him in for a long kiss, hands over his. “With you. Always.”

It had killed Varric to abandon Hawke like that, but something in him said it was time to move on, that he could do more good out here than he ever could at Hawke’s side. Besides, it’s not like they all didn’t stick out like a sore thumb; how many beardless dwarfs with repeating crossbows could there possibly be in Thedas? No, better to let the group stay small and for Isabela to help them camouflage in a new life, wherever they’d be going.

And now… he’s here. Right back where everything started so very long ago.

Sleep doesn’t come for a long time that night.


End file.
